Where Tacoma Design Ideas Come From

Niche customers are never included in the focus group. Niche customers are the innovators, bad and good. Niche customers is who drives the next "hot trend" that all the bland, boring people in the focus groups want to imitate. Take a look at your door picture above. Tell me what you see. I see plastic being molded to look like a molle panel. I see a flat top panel at the window, similar to the half door panels on true off road rigs. I see eye searing colors and graphics. These are all imitations of niche people. But if Toyota left out the regular people, then they wouldn't sell very many trucks.

 

Maybe the wrong answer for you, but, again, there is another opinion.

There are millions of people that want no-frills trucks but you sure as hell can't get them in the U.S. So you're "argument" is moot.

Have you ever asked why you cannot special order a vehicle anymore? One under $50 or 60K? Because the automakers make more if THEY choose the packages that WE have to buy.

This is not rocket science, Oppenheimer. This is what capitalism has come to in the automotive world.

 

Had to go out in the heat just to look at mine quick...haha

To start, improve what? Visual design? Robust handling after 10 years of use? Ease of breaking open when locked?

And, are you asking what I would do to the exisiting 3G latch as a stand alone example, or is this a sideways way of asking what would I have done differently to get to the point the 4g latch is on its way out to the public? If the latter I'd have to say I'd need to get a tactile feel and function pull / close, etc feel on the 4g before answering. So at the moment I can't do that, just look at apparently pre-production (i.e. not finished) photos, but if nothing really changed except it's placement then there has been no improvement in the 4g latch...?

For the 3g, given my only 5 weeks on it yet (10 years on 2g) - biggest thing would be to get rid of a secondary key to carry around not related to driving the vehicle. Make part of the fob action? So this would be an engineering functional design. Looks-wise it's just there, is flush enough to the door, doesn't pop open on its own (yet), and feels ok / similar to other latch handles. I WOULD get rid of the 'TACOMA' printed on the door itself though lol. Talk about pinching pennies in other spots, what does it cost to mold that, fail some number on QC issues around that badge, etc.

Anyway, not sure what else you are referring to in your question? Is there something many people have experienced or complained about that I haven't caught along the way? Need a detailed question to answer, vague questions lead to vague rambling answers... to which I'm usually guilty.

 

At least show a finished panel and not the glossy prototype from your photo. But yes, I will 100% say that this is a better design than the current truck which is just a sheet of paper thin vinyl over a hard door card. This looks to actually have padding.

 

One more time...
There are millions of people who can only afford a no frills vehicle. They want a 1794 edition. Very very few people want something basic. Right now, demand is for those nice trucks, and manufacturers supply them. Please understand Econ 101. If there is no demand, there is no use to supply. It never works the other way unless it is a totally new product.

 

Lol I just asked the question that would be similar to what really happens. People want improvements but cannot articulate the exact improvement needed.

 

I don't think theres any hurt feelings, the conversation is all in good fun.


I think we get hung up on the focus group aspect - those bear much less weight than we think they do. I can sit in a focus group, be shown a blue walrus and say "yeah sure, I'd buy that." And then when it hits the shelves they'll wonder why no one is buying blue walruses.

Most companies are looking at purchase trends: whats actually being bought. What makes, what models, and what options are being bought across all of those? If they really want to drill down into the whys of the purchase trends, they'll look at the post-purchase satisfaction surveys. Where are people really plonking their dollar-votes and what are they really buying when they buy a car? Are they interested in the tow power or are they buying it for the heated seats and moonroof? I bet you that the dealership sent most of us a survey. They sent me one.


From what I have repeatedly read, it takes between 5 to 10 years to institute a design change in the car making world. I bet you that the day the 4th gen releases, the 5th gen tacoma is already about a year past napkin-scribble phase. So they have to take purchase trends and forecast it to what people will be buying in the future.


I think I said in another thread that the 4th gen interior looks like they rummaged through GM's and Nissan's spare parts bin. That was probably not a coincidence. They were looking at what people were buying 5-10 years ago and probably came to the same conclusions in 2014 what the fashion trends would be in 2024. Right now they are holding meetings about what the world will be buying in 2035. I say that since we are in a 70's box revival right now, the 90's bubble car will appear next decade.

 

All good, but You rolled me! Not adding "knowitall" street cred here, just perspective. I had years where I was at the output final testing of some high end electronic products before release. I was the final customer of what R&D were putting out, hardware , software, visual, safety, etc. When you asked that I went into my previous life mode of "lock down and bring the hammer to justify your statement" with specifics. FDA and ISO will mess you up for life.

 

Okay, whatever, dude. But you just said it yourself:

"Very very few people want something basic." What do you base that statement on? The fact that they can only buy what is being built?

"Right now, demand is for those nice trucks, and manufacturers supply them." Because THAT'S WHERE THE MONEY IS so that's all they build!!

But, it's your thread so you're right. I am done. Have a good one.

 

So I’m really curious to hear how the rusty frames customer feedback went through the ranks. They must have put their best guys on this!

 

Ooofff. That's gonna be rough after the way the world has been the past few years, and what they have available on the lots at the moment, to generate those purchase trends. I kind of got what I actually wanted out of a 3g a month ago, just timed it right too. I think many people, and not just with Tacomas, are getting what are somewhat limited options when they may need to get something in a hurry. From a stats standpoint, that does not make me happy when it skews their "reports".

 

Maybe pictures will help you:

Versus


$21K difference. Same truck. Care to guess which one sells the most?
Manufacturer did not make people buy the Off Road. People made themselves. Now I'm done.

 

The elephant in the room with Toyota is that they build what they THINK the customer wants not what the customer actually orders. So we will never know if there is an untapped market for sub 30k basic bitch Tacomas.


I’d wager the fact that the Maverick is sold out for 2 years suggests that customers really do want a cheap disposable truck

 

True. I think economics plays a large role as well. Right now most major industries are full swing in the low-volume, high-margin model, and you see evidence of that everywhere. Theme park and ski resort attendance are down in some cases by 50%, but profits are at a high. They have found a high-margin luxury item like a fast-pass or a premium lift-ticket to gouge target the high-income demographic, and have decided to ignore the low income set for a while. Same with movie theaters and their model to sell "premium seating for a little more." Same with most consumer goods, including cars. To answer the other conversation in this thread, that's why you don't see bare bones trucks on the market. Its more profitable to produce low volume, high margin instead of high volume, bare bones. There isn't enough buying power on the low end to make that work right now.

I'm no economic guru, but I don't think this model is sustainable for long. Interest rates will eventually make the pendulum swing the other way, and things will get interesting when it does.

 

It's also the market Toyota positions itself in. If they wanted to get into fleet truck sales in a meaningful way, they'd offer base-spec (because that's what that customer wants), and those would trickle their way down into retail as well (much to the dealership's chagrin)

 

The maverick sold out like that because people who want a city truck with great MPG bought it. That's a different demographic than the enthusiasts and wannabes that Toyota attracts.

 

We're an hour from Jay Peak and Stowe and laugh at what they've done to lift prices.

"Hi. We're Amazon. We lose a little bit of money on every item sold, but we make up for it with volume."

 

I have to think that it was just a pure economic analysis.
Here's what happened -


Here is the states that use salt


Maybe half of the US population?
Point is, the Toyota engineers specified a specific steel and their supplier screwed it up. Toyota had to clean up the mess, as they only got $25M from Dana and paid $3.4B to settle the law suit.
However, let's put that $3.4B into Toyota scaled numbers. If the Tacoma sells 250K in 2023 at an average cost of $35K, that is $8.8B in sales. It cost them less than half a year's production.

 

You guys just can't get your heads wrapped around the concept that the manufacturers build their supply based on the consumer demand can you. Manufacturers just don't build high dollar shit and expect people to buy it. They build high dollar shit because the consumers are demanding it.